5 Steps to the redemption of Ronda Rousey

#3 Use her world class Judo

Rousey is a Judo savant

Ronda Rousey is the daughter of Dr AnnMaria De Mars. De Mars holds the distinction of being the first American to take home Gold at the World Judo Championships. Rousey, herself, is an Olympic bronze medallist in Judo and, for years, successfully implemented several Judo techniques in her MMA fights.

Rousey is a world class grappler- this, in itself, is an understatement. However, somewhere along the line, after she burst out into the mainstream, her team (Coach Edmond, in particular) led her to believe that she is a world class striker.

The point to be noted here is that Rousey has decent punching mechanisms. However, since striking involves many more techniques than just phone-booth punching, she is not an elite striker.

Mind you, she has all the physical tools, financial resources and access to world class coaching staff; in order to become a decent striker. But, her prolonged stay with Edmond, has led to stagnation in the natural course of development of her striking.

Secondly, Edmond’s over-emphasis on making Rousey strike with her opponents for prolonged periods of time, has led to subtle changes in Rousey’s fighting style, at it’s very core. Let us now understand this issue, with two simple examples.

Firstly, Rousey’s fight with ‘Alpha’ Cat Zingano at UFC 184. Now, this part is extremely important since this fight marked a pivotal moment in Rousey and Zingano’s respective careers. Ever since Rousey took the Strikeforce belt off Miesha Tate, a number of MMA pundits felt that if any 135 pound female fighter, ever held a chance at beating Rousey, it was Cat Zingano. This belief grew stronger, when Zingano brutalized Tate in the 3^rd round of their slugfest.

If one was given the task to design a female bantamweight fighter, in order to beat Rousey, the design would be something similar to Cat Zingano. Zingano is a strong wrestler with excellent Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ). Her Muay Thai is lethal, and even though her defence at boxing range, leaves much to be desired, she makes up for it with her granite chin and iron will.

Furthermore, Zingano has the ability to stop the bull-rush clinch entries that Rousey uses while she enters the clinch, looking to set up her Judo hip tosses. Even for a trip takedown Rousey would have to wade in through Zingano’s vast array of Muay Thai strikes, which involve her deadly knees; knees that Tate can confirm hurt, real bad!

However, at UFC 184, Rousey vs Zingano ended in a flash submission finish, and everyone started lauding Rousey as a miracle worker. The point to be noted, here, is that flash submissions are as much of a reality in MMA, as flash KOs are.

Due to the fight ending in the manner that it did, we were deprived of, what may have been, a significantly intriguing clash of styles between Rousey and Zingano. We learnt from this fight, what we already knew, Rousey’s Judo is as legit as it comes.

We also learnt that Rousey fights smart, to her strengths, instead of playing to the strengths of her opponents.

The second illustration, is that of Rousey’s fight against Amanda Nunes at UFC 207. This fight is the perfect illustration of Rousey falling into love with her wild swinging brawling style. What we need to understand here is that Rousey did not get to the top and stay there so long, by merely being a brawler.

Although the UFC marketed Rousey as a hard-nosed brawler chick, the truth is that Rousey has always had an excellent technical base, for fighting. She has been well-schooled by her mother and her Olympic coaches in the art of Judo. She is, truly, a scary grappling wizard.

However, after her victory over Zingano, Rousey burst out into the mainstream media, even more so, than before. Vine videos of her short and sweet fights with Alexis Davis and Cat Zingano started being circulated, mainstream pop stars started referencing her, all kinds of distractions were knocking on her door.

Rousey’s next fight was against Brazilian brawler, Bethe Correia. Correia is a brawler, so to speak, however, doesn’t carry much power in her hands. In the fight against Correia, we saw a different version of Rousey than her previous fights.

Rousey came out trying to bull-rush Correia, just like every other fight. However, inspite of scoring a trip takedown on Correia, she seemed to be adamant on standing and trading with her. Now, Correia is no prime Mike Tyson, but Rousey simply stood in front of her and turned the fight into a sloppy boxing match.

She caught Correia with a good close range right, and knocked her out. The entire arena cheered, and UFC commentator, Joe Rogan, went on to shower praises on Rousey’s advanced striking skills. Rogan, while speaking to his fellow commentator, Mike Goldberg, ominously stated that we might as well, see Rousey knocking people out with head kicks, in her next fight. In her very next fight against Holly Holm, Holm head kicked Rousey and took away her aura of invincibility. Poetic.

In the fight that followed, Nunes went on to deliver Rousey her second consecutive knockout loss. Now, let’s focus purely on the Nunes fight. Rousey’s stylistic changes led to her neglecting the small openings, that she, in her earlier fights, used to jump on; in order to get the fight to the ground.

This change in her fighting style, at it’s very core, reflected in her win against Correia, her loss against Holm as well as her loss against Nunes. Nunes, on her part, always had the reputation of, at times, over-extending on her strikes. However, since her loss to Zingano, and her move to American Top Team (ATT); she has shored up these (now former) deficencies in her striking.

She has always been powerful, always had knockout power, however, by not over-extending on her strikes, she ingrained a useful quality in herself. This quality would, later on, serve to help her against Miesha Tate and Ronda Rousey.

Now, getting back to the Nunes vs Rousey fight, it was brief. However, instead of threatening with her clinch entries like she had done to several opponents, in the past, Rousey took a more stationary stance. She planted her feet and tried to jab against a superior jabber, in Nunes.

Nunes stung her with a few crisp jabs, and then a couple of long, right straights. And that was that. An important aspect of this fight that remained least-discussed was that Rousey tried to initiate the clinch after engaging in an unnecessary jab-fest with Nunes.

Now, although the fight starts on the feet, brilliant strikers, can always be perplexed by strong grapplers. Now, Rousey doesn’t have the traditional single leg takedowns or blast doubles in her arsenal. However, her ability to simply drag her opponents to the ground is unquestionably present.

Much like, the PRIDE FC version of Fabricio Werdum, Rousey could simply pull-guard or even butt-scoot her way into grappling exchanges. However, and her coach Edmond is responsible for this, she adopted a stance that would facilitate her striking, more than a square-on one, that is closer to her Judo roots.

Ronda Rousey is an elite Judoka and a world class grappling savant. Very few people in the world can claim to have either skill-set on the ground. While being gifted with such rich knowledge of the art of grappling, why Rousey has changed her stance, and fighting style, currently, remains a mystery.